The present invention relates to equipment for smoothing the surface of ice, particularly the surfaces of indoor and outdoor skating rinks. The industry standard for ice rink resurfacing is a machine called a Zamboni, which was patented in the 1950s (U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,642,679 and 2,763,939). Zambonis operate by conditioning the roughened ice surface before it is flooded with clean water which is then allowed to freeze. Resurfacing is done in a single pass; but the machines are very costly, and a need exists for less expensive equipment. In the northern United States and Canada there are a great many seasonal outdoor ice rinks, very few of which are resurfaced using a Zamboni for a variety of reasons including cost, the need to store a Zamboni inside at a temperature above freezing, and the substantial weight of the machine which makes it impractical to use on the surface of a pond or lake where the ice may vary in thickness. There are other ice resurfacers that are smaller in size but, again, operate by spreading a thin layer of water onto a surface and allowing it to freeze (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,138,387, for example). Many ice rinks, however, do not have convenient access to water. In addition, the concept of resurfacing ice by melting it and allowing it to refreeze is known as shown in Canadian Patent No. 692,617; U.S. Pat. No. 6,644,301; and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0187119 A1. For various reasons, none of these devices have proven to be a practical solution to the described problem.